THE RISKS OF FOREIGN
PEACEKEEPING FORCES IN
THE WEST BANK
Former Head of
the Research
and Assessment
Division, IDF
Intelligence; former
military secretary
to the Minister of
Defense
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror
Israel’s Experience with
International Peacekeepers
During the 1967 Six-Day War, I was a soldier
serving in Battalion 202 of the Paratroopers
Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
We entered the Gaza Strip from south of
Gaza City and on the first day of fighting,
in the early afternoon, we were told not to
open fire on a group that was due to arrive
in an orderly fashion along the railway
line. After about an hour a group of Indian
soldiers with large Sikh turbans on their
heads approached. They marched between
the railway lines in neat groups of four, rifles
slung across their shoulders with the barrels
pointing downward, a clear sign that they did
not intend to use them. This was UNEF, the
United Nations Emergency Force, which had
retreated from the area just before hostilities
broke out.
UNEF had been installed at the end of
the 1956 Sinai Campaign as a buffer force
between Egypt and Israel after the Israeli
withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula and the
Gaza Strip. However, at the moment of truth,
just when the force was most needed to avert
war, it evacuated in response to the request of
the president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser,
to UN Secretary-General U Thant. The UNEF
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Foreign Peacekeepers
withdrawal from Sinai was one of the main
developments that precipitated the outbreak
of the Six-Day War. The history of UNEF’s
betrayal of Israel, no matter how it might
have been legally justified by the UN, served
as a formative event in shaping how Israelis
look today at proposals for them to rely on
international forces for their security.
UNIFIL in Lebanon
Later, as an intelligence officer in the
IDF Northern Command, along the front
with Lebanon and Syria, I noticed that
UNIFIL, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon,
was completely ineffective. UNIFIL was
established in 1978 in accordance with
UN Security Council Resolution 425 in the
aftermath of Operation Litani, an Israeli
ground incursion into Lebanon in response
to repeated terrorist attacks into northern
Israel by the PLO. UNIFIL’s mandate was to
confirm Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon,
restore international peace and security, and
help restore the authority of the Lebanese
government in the area.
But southern Lebanon quickly reverted to
being a terrorist stronghold from which
hostile forces fired upon Israel. UNIFIL did not
The United Nations flag
next to the Hizbullah flag
in southern Lebanon near
the border with Israel.
Dore Gold
81
prevent this from happening. What UNIFIL
did do was interfere with IDF operations.
The UNIFIL deployment did not prevent
the deterioration of the situation and the
outbreak of the 1982 Lebanon War. Even
after the war, the same problems with UNIFIL
remained, when the threat to Israel by the
PLO was replaced by the Iranian-backed
Hizbullah. In the years that followed, the IDF
acted correctly. It would enter Lebanon when
necessary as a regular army, with a flag and a
uniform. It coordinated its entry in advance in
an effort to avoid injuring UN personnel.
UNIFIL in southern Lebanon is
more prone to intervene against
Israeli self-defense operations
than against acts of aggression by
Hizbullah.
Hizbullah, by contrast, was an armed
force of irregulars that attacked from, and
disappeared into, the civilian population of
Lebanon. They informed no one when they
were going in or pulling out of an area. The
UN never caught any Hizbullah terrorists
and took no action against them – even
after Hizbullah opened fire. When Hizbullah
moved its artillery positions to within 50
meters of a UN position and then fired on
Israeli targets, UNIFIL did nothing. But if
Israel employed counter-fire against the very
same Hizbullah artillery, then the UN Division
for Peacekeeping Operations would issue
a formal diplomatic complaint. As a result,
the UN was more prone to intervene against
Israeli self-defense operations than against
acts of aggression by Hizbullah.
UNIFIL has been a constant reminder to
the Israeli public of the fecklessness of
international forces in preventing an Islamist
insurgent force like Hizbullah from carrying
out terrorist warfare against Israel. Following
Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from southern
Lebanon in May 2000, Hizbullah undertook a
massive weapons buildup, accumulating some
20,000 rockets, more than 4,000 of which it
launched at Israeli towns and cities in the 2006
Second Lebanon War. Moreover, in a major
Hizbullah operation in October 2000, its forces
crossed into Israeli territory from an area of
Lebanon supposedly controlled by the UN and
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Foreign Peacekeepers
abducted three Israeli soldiers, while killing
others. All this transpired under the nose of a
UNIFIL position, from which the incident could
easily be observed. No UNIFIL roadblocks
were set up to intercept the Hizbullah vehicles
carrying the Israeli captives.
Since the 2006 war, and despite the
introduction of more than 10,000 additional
UNIFIL troops into southern Lebanon
under the auspices of UN Security Council
Resolution 1701, Hizbullah has rearmed at a
torrid pace. The group has accumulated more
than 50,000 rockets despite the fact that
UNIFIL was supposed to have upgraded its
peacekeeping mandate. True, the increased
UN and Lebanese Army presence in southern
Lebanon has made Hizbullah activity more
difficult south of the Litani River and has
forced the group to move the bulk of its
operations north of that line. However,
Hizbullah continues to operate openly, in
contravention to UN Resolutions 425 and
1701, and has never adhered to UNIFIL
requirements.
In fact, in July and October 2009, large
weapons caches exploded in UN-controlled
territory and the UN had known nothing
of the existence of either cache. There are
tens of such arms caches scattered across
southern Lebanon and hundreds of Hizbullah
operatives training there. Have any been
arrested? No. In short, the presence of UN
forces in Lebanon has not been a helpful
factor, even when the Lebanese government
has wanted the UN to curb Hizbullah.
International Forces and
Palestinians
What will happen if UN forces are sent
to a sovereign Palestinian state whose
government does not want an international
force to neutralize or disrupt the activities
of organizations like Hizbullah or Hamas. If
international forces are deployed in order
to ensure that the Palestinians fulfill the
security clauses in their agreement with
Israel, yet the Palestinian government retains
strong reservations about certain security
restrictions – like demilitarization – which it
believes to be an infringement on Palestinian
sovereignty, then that government will show
little interest in the continued presence of
these international forces.
In Gaza, European monitors had been stationed
along the Egyptian border in accordance with
the 2005 Rafah border crossing agreement
brokered by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice. But the Europeans fled their positions
when internecine fighting between Hamas
and Fatah heated up after the Hamas victory in
the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. The
monitors also fell victim to kidnappings by local
Palestinians, which contributed to their decision
to quit their post.
At the Jericho prison in PA-controlled territory
in the West Bank, in 2006 British and U.S.
prison guards proved unable to enforce
prison sentences on Palestinian terrorists, as
agreed under international understandings.
In the end, the IDF was compelled to act,
entering the prison to take Palestinian
terrorist prisoners to Israeli prisons, including
Ahmed Saadat, leader of the Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine, who was
responsible for the murder of Israeli cabinet
minister Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001.
The presence of international forces is supposed
to provide the Israeli public with a solution to
the security problems resulting from a territorial
withdrawal. However, from Israel’s experience,
the only successful security forces that can be
relied upon are its own. Therefore, the presence
of a UN force, as it has been in the past, will
merely create an obstacle to Israel’s ability
to defend itself. This is why Israel must retain
the exclusive right to act against armed terror
groups – thereby ruling out the option of an
international force.
Israel Seeks to Defend Itself
By Itself
Two members of the
European Union’s border
monitor mission look at a
scanner screen operated
by a Palestinian border
police officer at the
Rafah border crossing,
November 25, 2005.
European monitors fled
their posts shortly after
Palestinian internecine
violence broke out
between Fatah and
Hamas, after Hamas won
the 2006 Palestinian
elections.
Israel’s need to “defend itself by itself” is not
a new idea. It is based on Israel’s national
ethos since its War of Independence. It is also
rooted in Israel’s internationally-sanctioned
right to “secure and recognized boundaries”
or “defensible borders” that was enshrined
in UN Security Council Resolution 242 that
followed the 1967 war and has governed all
Arab-Israeli diplomacy ever since. President
George W. Bush used this language in the
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presidential guarantee he provided to former
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a quid
pro quo for withdrawing from Gaza in 2005,
stating, “The United States reiterates its
steadfast commitment to Israel's security,
including secure, defensible borders, and to
preserve and strengthen Israel's capability to
deter and defend itself, by itself, against any
threat or possible combination of threats.”
Generally, international forces can only
work when both parties exhibit the required
political will to observe bilateral agreements.
In such cases, an international force can assist
in supervising treaty implementation, as in
the case of the Egypt-Israel Treaty of Peace
in the Sinai Peninsula. Since August 3, 1981,
when the Multinational Force and Observers
(MFO) was agreed to and funded by Israel,
Egypt, and the United States, the security
clauses of the peace treaty have been upheld
by both parties. It is important to note that
both Egyptians and Israelis have maintained
a bilateral interest in upholding its terms. But
even in this scenario, should either party ever
choose to breach the agreement, the MFO
would be unable to prevent it.
The Track Record of NATO/Western
Peacekeepers
Because of the poor track record of UN forces,
sometimes the suggestion is made to send
NATO forces instead, with the assumption that
they are more robust and will be better able
to handle the mission. Whereas UN forces can
come from many non-Western states, from
Fiji to Nigeria, whose soldiers may be poorly
trained and underequipped, a NATO force is
presumably more reliable. While for the most
part UN forces serve as peacekeeping troops
– observing that the terms of an agreement
are upheld – a NATO deployment may include
more ambitious goals of peace enforcement:
imposing on warring parties a cessation of
hostilities to which they have not agreed. But
even NATO has many limitations that must be
noted.
For example, in the case of Bosnia, NATO
forces were deployed to uphold the 1995
Dayton Agreement and were effective once
Yugoslavia surrendered unconditionally.
However, the Israeli-Palestinian case does
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Foreign Peacekeepers
not include any form of Palestinian or Hamas
surrender, nor is surrender a status sought by
either the Palestinians or Israel. Subsequently,
the Yugoslav army retreated from Kosovo
to Yugoslavia, creating a physical reality in
which there was no longer contact between
the warring factions. Such conditions have
yet to be achieved in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and are not likely to be achieved in
the foreseeable future.
Whether an international force
is deployed under a NATO or a
UN mandate, all peacekeeping
forces will seek to maintain a
good working relationship with the
militias and terrorist groups that
engage in violence.
In earlier phases of the Bosnian War, there was
a largely Western military presence that had
been deployed under a UN mandate, known
as the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR).
NATO was already involved at this early
stage, supporting UNPROFOR. Even though
it was a well-equipped Western army,
UNPROFOR failed to stop horrible massacres
in that conflict. Most notably, the Dutch
UN contingent abandoned the Muslims of
Srebrenica as they were attacked by the
Bosnian Serb Army, leading to the mass
murder of over 8,000 civilians in 1995. NATO
was only to intervene if it had UN approval;
there was a “dual-key” mechanism which
required the agreement of both organizations
to activate NATO’s power.
Regardless of whether an international force
is deployed under a NATO or a UN mandate,
as long as the forces are deployed into
the midst of hostilities, they will face the
same fundamental problem that all such
peacekeeping forces face: their need to
maintain a good working relationship even
with the militias and terrorist groups that
engage in violence and aggression against
them. In Bosnia, UNPROFOR did not want to
alienate the Bosnian Serb Army, which was
known at times to threaten UN troops and
take them as hostages. In Lebanon, UNIFIL
did not want to anger Hizbullah, for similar
reasons.
Rescue workers search
for bodies in the rubble
of the U.S. Embassy
in Beirut following a
Hizbullah suicide bomb
attack on April 18,
1983, that killed over
60 people. On October
23, 1983, two truck
bombs struck buildings
housing U.S. and French
military forces
in Beirut, killing 241
American and 58 French
servicemen.
For peacekeeping forces in particular,
assuming a posture of strict neutrality
between the side that seeks to undermine
peace and security and the side that they
are supposed to defend emanates, above all,
from considerations of survival. This need
for neutrality is one of the major factors
guaranteeing that peacekeeping forces will
be ineffective and unreliable when they are
most needed.
Their need for neutrality, and the danger
that peacekeepers face when they try to do
their jobs, is not just a theoretical concept.
The force that was dispatched to Lebanon in
August 1982 was closer to a fully-armed NATO
force than to a UN Observer Mission. It was
made up of units from Britain, France, Italy,
and the U.S. In October 1983, both the French
paratrooper barracks and the U.S. Marine
headquarters were attacked by Shiite suicide
bombers, on orders from Tehran, causing the
deaths of nearly three hundred servicemen.
Within a year, both forces withdrew from
Lebanon, demonstrating not just the dangers
that peacekeepers face, but the reality that
they will quickly leave the theater when
attacked. This fact gives the peacekeeping
forces an additional bureaucratic incentive
to ingratiate themselves to the terrorist
or insurgent side of a conflict, because a
confrontation with such forces will lead to
the failure of the peacekeeping mission. This
fact of life for peacekeepers has been borne
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out again and again by UNIFIL, whose officials
have repeatedly denied and downplayed,
despite abundant and obvious evidence to
the contrary, that Hizbullah was violating
Resolution 1701.
There are those who believe that providing
a Western force like NATO, with UN backing,
can help offset the risks derived from western
deployments in the Middle East. In the
past, a UN Security Council mandate was
supposed to provide a peacekeeping force
with added legitimacy, which would offer
some protection to peacekeeping forces. But
when the threat to international forces comes
from militant Islamist groups, a UN mandate
does not necessarily make the force any more
acceptable. In August 2003, Al-Qaeda directly
attacked the Baghdad headquarters of the UN
Special Representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de
Mello, killing him and 16 others with a truck
bomb. How is the UN supposed to retaliate or
punish a terrorist group?
When facing increasing fatalities, international
forces often lose the original political support
they had from the states that contributed
them for any peacekeeping mission. In the
Iraq War, the U.S.-led coalition lost national
contingents from counties concerned with
their security. After Madrid was attacked by
Al-Qaeda, Spain elected a new government
that withdrew all Spanish troops from Iraq.
The continued deployment of Dutch troops in
Afghanistan, under NATO, became politically
controversial in the Netherlands during 2010,
leading to their withdrawal.
Whether they engage in peacekeeping
or peace enforcement, there is always the
question of what are the precise rules of
engagement of international forces, including
a NATO force. For example, are international
forces only permitted to open fire in selfdefense when they come under attack? Or
alternatively, can international forces use their
firepower to prevent an act of aggression?
As UN peacekeepers, the Belgian forces in
Rwanda in 1994 were denied permission
to take action against the Hutu militia that
initiated the genocide against the Tutsi tribe.
Even in a robust NATO deployment in
Afghanistan, which is not a peacekeeping
mission, European states have insisted
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Foreign Peacekeepers
on “caveats” for the employment of their
forces, restricting their use for only the
safest missions. There were national caveats
banning nighttime operations and restricting
the geographic deployment of forces to
specific areas which were known to be more
secure. Some caveats required consultations
between commanders in the field and
national capitals in Europe before tactical
decisions could be taken. Most importantly,
there were national caveats that excluded
the use of certain forces that were part of the
NATO alliance in counterterrorism operations.1
General John Craddock, the former Supreme
Allied Commander of NATO, admitted in
2009 that NATO forces were burdened with
83 national caveats, which were reduced to
about 70.2
NATO remains a cumbersome
organization. Given its track record
in Afghanistan, it is difficult to
imagine the efficacy of similar
forces in the West Bank.
NATO remains a cumbersome organization,
especially when it comes to decisionmaking and processing urgent operational
requirements from commanders. In counterterrorism operations, it is precisely the ability
to act quickly and decisively that keeps the
peace and prevents attacks. Given the track
record of NATO in Afghanistan, it is difficult
to imagine the efficacy of similar forces in the
West Bank.
International Forces Constrain
Israeli Self-Defense
Israel needs to be prepared for the possibility
that even after agreements are signed and a
demilitarized Palestinian state is established,
groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad,
or even U.S.-trained PA security forces
themselves, may act in contravention of the
agreements. Israel should take into account
that in such situations international forces
would likely not take action. In fact, the rocket
assault against Israel by Hamas following
Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza suggests that
a similar scenario could unfold in the West
Egyptian President
Gamal Abdel Nasser
with UN Secretary
General U Thant, May
24, 1967, two weeks
before the outbreak of
the Six-Day War. Thant
agreed to Nasser’s
request to withdraw UN
Emergency Forces that
had been stationed in
Sinai as a buffer since
the 1956 war. Nasser
replaced the UNEF
with Egyptian military
divisions ready to attack
Israel, precipitating the
outbreak of hostilities.
Bank, placing Israel’s coastal plain under
rocket attack.
In such a scenario, as long as a UN force is
present on Palestinian territory, the IDF’s
operational freedom of action will be limited.
The Israeli army cannot open fire against the
enemy as it deems appropriate without first
verifying the location of the UN personnel.
Israel faces the risk of being placed in a
bind in which nobody will be able to act
against terrorists: the international forces will
simultaneously fail to prevent terrorist attacks
on Israel but succeed in preventing Israel
from defending itself.
Prime Minister Rabin said in his last speech to
the Knesset in September 1995 that the IDF
must control the Jordan Valley “in the broadest
meaning of that term.”3 Israel must isolate the
territory along the Jordan River to prevent the
smuggling of arms, personnel, and know-how.
Inside the territory there must be a Palestinian
police force to deal with internal problems
whose principal power is limited to machine
guns that are unable to penetrate IDF armored
vehicles. It must be agreed in advance that
in the event of an act of terror or a revolvingdoor policy of arresting and then freeing
terrorists, as in the past, the IDF will be able to
enter the area in order to detain suspects and
prevent further attacks.
Who Will Guarantee
Demilitarization?
The prospective establishment of a
Palestinian state poses substantial security
challenges for Israel. Even with a fully and
verifiably demilitarized Palestinian sovereign
entity, without security control over the West
Bank, Israel will be confronted with enormous
uncertainties over how to assure its future
security.
Will a future Palestinian sovereign entity
become a state with a strong commitment
to the rule of law? Without the assistance of
the IDF, which has assumed the bulk of the
responsibility for combating terrorism, will PA
security forces be able to establish full control
and completely dismantle terror groups
such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and
Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades?
During the implementation of the Oslo
Agreements, Yasser Arafat created a separate
military force outside of the Palestinian
Authority, known as the Tanzim, which was
under the control of Fatah and was not
constrained by bilateral agreements. It was
employed during a period of escalation against
Israel, like the Second Initifada. What is to
prevent such paramilitary groups from arising
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again? What will the Middle East look like in the
coming years in view of Iranian-backed regional
subversion and Al-Qaeda activity that is moving
closer to Israel’s borders?
Meanwhile, Palestinian control of an
independent territory might reenergize
Palestinian confidence to attempt to deal
a fatal blow by launching major strategic
attacks against Israel. Such a scenario could
become more likely in view of the short
distance – a mere 8 to 12 miles – between
the Mediterranean Sea and the Palestinian
state. In practical terms, this means that
any sustained Palestinian rocket assault or
combined military offensive from the West
Bank, if successful in its initial stage, will pose
a serious threat to Israel’s interior. Israel will
live under a far greater threat and will be
forced to prepare ways to neutralize an initial
Palestinian offensive.
Israel will also need to develop defense plans
without the critical topographical advantage
of controlling the West Bank mountain ridge.
From the dominant terrain facing west, any
Palestinian with a Kassam rocket would be
able to hit Israel’s main airport and major
cities that lie along the coastal plain – the
country’s “strategic center of gravity,” as it is
known in combat doctrine. This new reality
will make it difficult to defend Israel – either
against mobile forces or against rocket or
other weapons fire – creating a new and
constant preoccupation for Israeli military
planners: figuring out how Israel, under such
conditions, is to provide for its own defense.
There will be no way to neutralize this
untenable situation entirely, but the danger
can be greatly reduced by creating a
situation that will prevent the Palestinian
side from thinking in terms of building up its
conventional military and clandestine terror
capabilities in the West Bank. It will also mean
that any security arrangements in the West
Bank must preclude the reinforcement of the
Palestinians by Arab or Iranian forces from the
east. In short, this means preventing the rise of
any conventional military or terrorist threat in
the entire territory between the “green line” and
the Jordan Valley.
Given these concerns, the following security
conditions must be guaranteed:
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Foreign Peacekeepers
1. No foreign army will enter the territory of
a Palestinian authority or state.
2. No military organization of any kind will
be established in the territory in question,
whether or not it belongs to the state.
3. No weapons of any kind may be
smuggled into the territory, whether from
the east or from another direction.
If any of these scenarios take place, the IDF
needs to be in a position to intervene and
eliminate the threat.
These three conditions are derived from
the Israeli requirement that any Palestinian
entity be fully demilitarized. But it would
be a serious mistake to believe that Israeli
requirements for verifying complete
Palestinian demilitarization could be
guaranteed by international forces operating
in the West Bank. International forces have
never been successful anywhere in the
world in a situation where one of the parties
was ready to ignore the fulfillment of its
responsibilities. There is no reason to expect
that this case would be any different.
The killing of peacekeepers is
one of the most effective means
in the terrorist arsenal to weaken
and break the political will of
states who contribute forces to
peacekeeping operations.
Conclusions
In the Middle East, as elsewhere in the world,
international forces have been notoriously
unreliable, especially when they have been
challenged by one of the parties, as in the case
of Nasser’s Egypt in 1967 or Hizbullah today.
The killing of peacekeepers is one of the most
effective means in the terrorist arsenal to
weaken and even break the political will of
states who contribute forces to peacekeeping
operations. In any event, international forces
have historically shown a reluctance to
militarily confront those challenging them,
and even in the case of NATO, they are likely
to operate under highly restrictive rules
of engagement and confused chains of
UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan with Hizbullah
leader Shiek Hassan
Nasrallah in Lebanon,
June 20, 2000. The
meeting gave recognition
to Hizbullah’s influence
in Lebanon. Since its
2006 war with Israel,
Hizbullah’s power has
extended well beyond
southern Lebanon to the
central and northern
parts of the country.
command which will limit their value in the
scenarios that Israel will likely face.
fall on Israel to block the attack in the Jordan
Valley.
Therefore, the requirement articulated by
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that any
Palestinian state must be demilitarized must
necessarily preclude the presence of any
armed third party or international forces on
prospective Palestinian territory.
It is thus important to understand the limited
utility of international forces in a future
Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. As one
analyst of peacekeeping operations has
warned: “Peacekeeping is a very useful tool
of international politics, but an inherently
limited tool. It can and must take on violent
local challenges to peace implementation,
but only at the margins of a peace process.
Should the core of that process lose cohesion,
a multinational operation will itself have
insufficient cohesion – and likely insufficient
military strength – to make the center hold.”4
This inherent weakness of international forces
makes Israel’s doctrine of self-reliance all the
more relevant, even after peace agreements
are signed.
Above all, even if NATO solves its problems
with national caveats and rules of
engagement that limit the effectiveness
of its troops, and the efficacy of UN
peacekeeping forces vastly improves, there is
still a fundamental principle in Israeli military
doctrine for Israel to “defend itself by itself.”
Israel has taken great pride in the fact that it
has never asked Western soldiers – including
American troops – to risk their lives in its
defense.
Israel’s requirement of self-reliance is
particularly important in view of possible and
even probable threat scenarios following the
signing of an agreement with the PA. Today,
and for the foreseeable future, no PA force
has the strength to dismantle Palestinian
factions such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And
should Israel come under conventional attack
in the future from the east, it would clearly
Notes
1.James Sperling and Mark Webber, “NATO: From Kosovo
to Kabul,” International Affairs 85:3 (2009):509.
2.Arnaud De Borchgrave, “’Caveats’ Neuter NATO Allies,”
Washington Times, July 15, 2009.
3. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/
MFAArchive/1990_1999/1995/10/PM+Rabin+in+Knesset
+Ratification+of +Interim+Agree.htm.
4. William J. Durch, with Madeline England, The Purpose
of Peace Operations (New York: Center on International
Cooperation, New York University, 2009), p. 8.
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